“I did not hope, by my presence at the conference, to do any good, or prevent any evil. So I told you in London. Yet I accepted your invitation, only because you desired it. And as I came merely to please you, I resolved not to contradict your _will_ in anything. Your _will_, I perceived, was to receive Mr. M‘Nab, unhumbled, unconvinced, into your confidence, and into your bosom. He came uninvited, and openly accused your curate for obeying your orders: you suffered it; and did not give Mr. M‘Nab the gentlest reproof for disobeying them, and drawing others into his rebellion; and endeavouring to engage all the preachers in it; making an actual separation at Bath, and still keeping up his separate society. My judgment was, never to receive Mr. M‘Nab as a preacher _till he acknowledged his fault_. But I submitted and attended in silence. It was much easier for me to say nothing, than to speak neither more nor less than you would approve. I was sometimes strongly tempted to speak; but, if I had opened my mouth, I should have spoiled all. Your design, I believed, was to keep all quiet. I allow you your merit. ‘_Tu maximus ille, es unus qui nobis_ CEDENDO _restituis rem_.’ By a very few words, I could have provoked your preachers to lay aside the mask; but that was the very thing you guarded against; and, I suppose, the reason for which you desired my presence was that I might be some sort of check to the independents. Still, I think it better for the people, that they (the preachers) should show themselves before your death than after it. You think otherwise; and I submit. ‘_Satis, jam satis spectata in te amicitia est mea_;’ and I am perfectly satisfied with my own insignificancy. I have but one thing to do. The Lord make me ready for it!”[348] This was an angry letter of a baffled man. It was grumbling in private what ought to have been said in public, or not to have been said at all. The insinuation respecting the preachers was unfounded and unworthy. The desire that M‘Nab should acknowledge his fault was unjust, for M‘Nab was really the aggrieved party. Charles Wesley would have driven the preachers into rebellion; his brother, as ready to repair an injury as he was anxious to avoid committing one, restored unanimity and confidence. “There was nothing at the conference,” writes John Pawson, “but peace, harmony, and love.” We only add, that Mr. M‘Nab’s subsequent appointments were honourable both to Wesley and himself. In 1780, he was sent to Sheffield; in 1781 to Manchester; and in 1782 to Newcastle. He then retired, “and resided for several years at Sheffield, where he was the pastor of a small congregation, who highly esteemed him; and there he finished his course about the year 1797.”[349]